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Project Summary

Difficulty	2
Time required	Very Short (a day or less)
Prerequisites	None
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Very Low (under $20)
Safety	No issues

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Objective

In this experiment you will use different search terms to measure the effect on search hits with Google.

Introduction

Do you often use Google to do research on a topic for school or fun? You may have even used Google to find this project idea. Google is a very good search engine for finding information, but sometimes it seems like you get way too many hits that don't have the kind of information you are looking for. Why is that? Doesn't Google know any better? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

Google is simply a computer program that searches for information using an algorithm. An algorithm is like a formula, it is a set of instructions written for the computer in coded language that tell it what to do. The Google algorithm is programmed to scan through digital information on the Internet looking for search terms (the words or phrase that best describe the information you want to find) that are typed in the search box by the user (you). By counting the number of matching search terms found on all of the pages on the Internet, it gives each page a score. The hits you see on your results page are the sites that got the highest scores from the Google algorithm because they contained the search terms you entered in the search box.

So how can you get better search results? The answer is by typing in the right search terms. Because of the way the Google algorithm works, the only way that you can get better hits is to give the computer better, more specific terms to search for. Here are some of the strategies that we will test:

• Use a specific term.
• Use more than one term.
• Change the order of the terms.
• Use quotes to search for a complete phrase.
• Use a negative term.

For example, you can use a negative term to keep certain information out of your search that you know is not what you are looking for. A negative term is a word with a minus sign typed in front of it ( -term ). If I search for ( apple ), I keep getting information about Apple Computers, but I really want information about the fruit. I can try to use a negative term to help narrow my search ( apple -computer ). If I search for ( apple banana ) I keep getting information about recipes using apples and bananas. I can try to use a negative term to help narrow my search ( apple banana -recipe ).

How will these tips help you search for more specific types of information? In this experiment we will measure the number of Google hits obtained by using each different strategy. Will these strategies increase or decrease the number of hits? Which strategy will work the best?

Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research

To do this type of experiment you should know what the following terms mean. Have an adult help you search the Internet, or take you to your local library to find out more!

• Google Search
• Google Hit
• search engine
• search term
• algorithm

Bibliography

• Google is the number one search engine these days. Learn the Google Search basics by reading through this tutorial:
  Google Help Center, 2006. "The Essentials of Google Search," Google. [accessed: 3/10/06] http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
• This is a search site built by librarians just for kids. Conduct an Internet search, browse through the different categories, or take a search lesson:
  KidsClick, 2005. "Web Search for Kids by Librarians," University of California, Berkeley. [accessed: 3/10/06] http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/
• Yahooligans is another site just for kids by the folks at Yahoo:
  Yahoo, 2006. "Yahooligans: the Web Guide for Kids." [accessed: 3/10/06] http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/

Materials and Equipment

• computer with Internet connection
• notebook and pencil
• graph paper or printer

Experimental Procedure

1. First, familiarize yourself with Google and read the Essentials of Google Search.
2. Think of a topic to search for, and make a list of possible terms. For example, if I want to research different kinds of fruit, my list would be:
   • fruit
   • apple
   • banana
   • orange
   • etc..

3. You will need a data table to write down your results:

   Search Term	Number of Google Hits

4. Go to the Google Home Page.
5. Choose search terms for your topic and type into the box. You should try combinations of different terms and strategies. Here are some examples of search terms using the "fruit" topic (the text that you would type in to the search engine is shown in parentheses):
   • One non-specific term: ( fruit )
   • One specific term: ( apple ) or ( banana )
   • Two terms: ( apple banana ) or ( apple orange )
   • Three terms: ( apple orange banana )
   • Two terms with AND: ( apple and orange )
   • Two terms with "___ AND ___": ( "apple and orange" )
   • Use a negative term: ( apple -computer ) or ( apple banana -recipe )
   • any other combination of terms you want to measure...

6. Click the"Google Search" button. On the results page, look in the top right corner for the number of hits and write the numbers in your data table.

   Where to find the number of hits on Google

7. Repeat for the other search terms you want to test, writing down the number of hits each time in your data table.
8. Make a bar graph of your data. Make a scale of the number of hits on the left side of the graph (Y-axis). Draw a bar for each set of search terms up to the matching number of Google hits on your scale. Make sure that your scale is big enough to include all of your data by setting the biggest number (the maximum) above your largest piece of data.
9. Which searches retrieved the largest amount of data? Which searches retrieved the smallest amount of data? How did that relate to the quality of the search? How do search terms without quotes ( A and B ) compare to search terms that are in quotes ( "A and B" )?

Variations

• Google is only one search engine for finding information on the Internet. Try a similar experiment with other search engines like Alta Vista, Lycos, Dog Pile, or Web Crawler. Do they use similar rules? Can you measure the number of hits? Hoe do different search terms change the number of hits you get?
• Libraries use similar algorithms to search for resources about a topic in newspapers, books, and magazine articles. Go to your local library to use the computer catalog to search for a book on a topic. What types of search terms do they use? What types of tools does the library catalog use to make a search more specific? Look for the use of search terms like "AND" or "NOT", the use of fields like "KEYWORD" or "AUTHOR", or any other way that they make a search more specific. Measure the number of hits you get with different methods and compare.
• For another Science Buddies experiment on using search engines, try Wild About Wildcards.

• For more science project ideas in this area of science, see Computer Science Project Ideas.

Credits

Sara Agee, Ph.D., Science Buddies

Last edit date: 2006-04-20 14:59:46

Career Focus

If you like this project, you might want to think about career opportunities in Computer Science.

Computers are essential tools in the modern world, handling everything from traffic control, car welding, movie animation, shipping, aircraft design, and social networking to book publishing, business management, music mixing, health care, agriculture, and online shopping. Computer programmers are the people who write the instructions that tell computers what to do. Learn more about this career: Computer Programmer.